


Signal Flags

by almostjulie



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Other characters in minor roles - Freeform, Rey-Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostjulie/pseuds/almostjulie
Summary: Rey begins her training, and comes to terms with her feelings for Finn. Not necessarily in that order.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all feedback is appreciated! 
> 
> My first Finn/Rey and it's probably ground that's been covered before. So next time I will branch out more. 
> 
> I am also on [tumblr](https://almost-julie.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi

Only belatedly, days later, when she’s hurtling through hyperspace with Chewie and Artoo, does Rey realize that Finn had been flirting with her. _Got a boyfriend? Cute boyfriend?_

He’s so far away already, and probably still in a coma, but she feels her face get red and she can’t stop the small “oh” that escapes her lips.

Chewie looks at her, head tilted in question.

“It’s nothing,” she says. But it is something.

***

_Rey stood, hesitating, in the doorway, watching a medical droid take Finn’s vitals._

_Dr. Kalonia pushed by her, into the room. She looked over the droid’s readouts, and made an adjustment to Finn’s IV drip._

_“I know it’s not my place to ask,” Rey started._

_Kalonia cut her off as she walked, brisk and efficient, on to her next patient. “I think if he wasn’t going to make it, he would be gone already.”_

***

It had been a nice bit of hope to cling to, but looking back, Rey wonders if it was just kindness from Kalonia (her form of it, at least), rather than the truth. 

When they stop to refuel the _Falcon_ , Rey thinks about turning around. A sense of duty pushes her forward.

***  
_Rey took a detour into medbay after meeting with General Organa. She still couldn’t believe that she was being trusted to go after Luke Skywalker. Surely there were other people here who were more qualified, who had been with the cause longer, who could be trusted more than someone they had all just met._

_The general wouldn’t hear any of it. “Trust in yourself, and the force, and bring my brother home.”_

_Rey was supposed to be provisioning the Falcon with Chewbacca, but instead she was standing in Finn’s doorway again._

_There was a man sitting at Finn’s bedside in a rumpled flight suit, biting his cuticle. He stood when he noticed her, and stuck out his hand. “Poe Dameron. Rey, right?”_

_She gave his hand a firm shake. “Ah, BeeBee speaks very highly of you.”_

_He smiled and nodded. “I can say the same to you. I actually thought I might have to start shopping for a new droid.”_

_He gestured for her to take his chair, and she collapsed into it. “I was hoping he’d wake up before I had to leave,” she said, more to herself than to Poe._

_“We’ll take good care of him, all of us.”_

_“You’d better,” Rey said, “Or I_ will _take BeeBee.”_

***

When they break through into the atmo on Ahch-To, it takes her breath away. It’s blue and blue and blue, stretching to the horizon. The sea is dotted with islands, but one in particular calls to her. 

She’s learning to trust that inner voice. 

***  
_Once they punched in the hyperspace numbers, she jumped out of pilot’s seat and ran back to check on Finn. His skin was burning hot and feverish. Rey didn’t notice that she herself was shivering until Chewbacca threw a blanket over her shoulders. Only then did she notice that she was icy-cold in her wet clothes, snow from_ Starkiller _melting into her boots._

_Rey took Finn’s hand in hers. It was hot, but it was no comfort at all and did nothing to warm her._

***

She had been so focused on getting to Ahch-To, on bringing Luke back, that she hadn’t given much thought to what he’d actually be like. Whatever she had been expecting, this wasn’t it.

“It’s time to begin your training.”

“Here?”

“What better place than the first Jedi temple?”

She couldn’t argue with that logic, but- “We were hoping you’d come back.”

She wants to bring him home, to Leia. Wants to go back herself, because surely Finn must be awake by now, and, well, she has a lot to sort through when it comes to Finn but she can’t get started when he’s so far away.

Luke smiles at her. “Maybe we should start with patience.” 

She wonders if he read her mind -- if it’s a Jedi thing, or if it’s just so plainly written on her face.

***

_“Luke Skywalker? I thought he was a myth.”_

_When she met Finn, Rey had been alone for years, scratching together a living for herself. She was past the point in her life for pleasant lies and fairytales._

_When she met Finn, everything changed. But it still wasn’t a fairytale._

***

So she stays and trains with Luke. Chewie comes and goes with the _Falcon_. He brings supplies, and bits and pieces of news, sometimes. But all of their contact with the Resistance is indirect and filtered through various channels so as not to lead the First Order here. Much of the news is days or weeks old, so by the time they hear of a particular skirmish, it’s probably long over, but they have to wait days more to hear the outcome. 

The day Chewie tells her Finn is awake is a good day. Rey laughs and hugs him until Luke pointedly clears his throat. She has trouble rebuilding a crumbled temple wall using only her mind to move the stones that day; it’s intricate work, like a particularly difficult puzzle, and she doesn’t finish until long after the sun sets. And yet she’s still smiling when the three of them sit down for dinner.

The day Chewie tells her that Finn’s been sent out in the field on a mission to attack a First Order base is a bad day. 

She’s on edge until ten days later when he brings news of the mission’s success. 

***

_The years piled up on Jakku, the days forgettable and monotonous. She learned to fix starships. She learned to fly them. She learned to speak five languages. She learned to stop letting herself get attached to anyone or anything. She learned to take care of herself._

_When Finn took her hand, her world opened up. But she didn’t realize it at the time._

***

Rey takes Luke’s lessons to heart: the handstands, and the rock levitating and the (rare) sparing, but she gets frustrated by all the mediating. 

“Concentrate,” he tells her. 

“I am,” she says. “We’ve been doing nothing but meditating for five straight days.” 

“You’re not mediating,” Luke says. “You’re seething quietly.” 

Something in her snaps. “I know patience, I’ve spent my whole life waiting. I need to be doing something useful.” She heistates, and then says what she’s been thinking for awhile. “Maybe you’re the one who’s not ready.” 

“Huh,” is all Luke says. 

Rey gives herself the rest of the day off, takes the long walk down to the beach and sits there, looking out at the sea, until her frustration dissipates. She thinks about Finn, and the moment she realized that he came back for her on _Starkiller_ , and hopes she can return the favor. 

She finds Luke the next morning, mediating, and silently sits down next to him. Neither of them mentions it again. Her training continues.

Months pass, she thinks; Rey kind of loses track of time. Until, one morning, she stands beside Luke as he stares out into the sea like the day they met, and he says, “It’s time to go home.”

***

Rey, Chewie, and Luke take turns flying back. As long as the journey to Ahch-To felt, the trip back to the new Resistance base feels longer. When it’s not her turn to fly she tries to get some sleep. She dreams of the future and promise and of being a Jedi. She dreams of Finn, and the closer they get to the base, the more she worries that she’s built him up in her mind, that she’s not as important to him as he is to her. 

When she sees him again, she realizes she shouldn’t have worried. 

In unspoken but agreed-upon deference, Rey and Chewie let Luke disembark first (well, second, after Artoo who didn't feel constrained by propriety) when they land. The General is standing there, right at the end of the ramp. They embrace silently, and Rey and Chewie slip by unnoticed. 

The new Resistance base is an arid planet, not as bad as Jakku, but its little scrub trees are nothing compared to the jungles of D’Qar or the seas of Ahch-To or forests of Takodana. She finds Finn, though, standing at the edge of the tarmac. He runs for her, and sweeps her up in a hug. Finn’s warm and solid and _real_ and she’s laughing in his ear and pulling him closer and this must be happiness. 

And it doesn’t matter what the planet looks like, because Finn's here, and she knows she’s home.


End file.
